She Would Say Yes
by geraldine de vaux
Summary: Out of all the ways that Millar & Gough are forging a separate identity for their show, this is a pretty minor question, but I couldn't help but wonder how Smallville's Lana and Pete could become the Lana-and-Pete of comic canon. No plot, all character.


Out of all the ways that Millar & Gough are forging a separate identity for their show, this is a pretty minor question, but I couldn't help but wonder how _Smallville_'s Lana and Pete could become the Lana-and-Pete of comic canon.

Written before Pete _adios-_ed, obviously--probably somewhere before the end of the second season.

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She Would Say Yes

Lana admired Chloe. She admired the way Chloe went after her stories, the way she was so passionate about what she loved. Lana did so much she couldn't afford to be that passionate. She just didn't have it in her. But Chloe was never brighter when she was dashing about on a mission to find a story. Even after she had broken her arm in service of journalism, Chloe had been on the job within two days of the injury, helping Clark from her hospital bed. Even for the things that did matter to her, like Whitney, like the Talon, she couldn't muster the enthusiasm that Chloe had for a single issue of the Torch.

She liked Clark for the same reason. He wasn't as blatant as Chloe, preferring to blend into the woodwork as much as she could. She resented him just a little for that, for being so unnoticeable that she really hadn't noticed him until now, and then turning out to be someone she wanted to get to know. He seemed mild-mannered, but there was something about him. Something about the way he listened and the way he cared and the way he was always in the right place at the right time to save people. It was like he had a calling, even though he didn't really know it yet. And she knew he had secrets, big secrets that shaped the course of his entire life, which affected his every living moment on earth. She couldn't imagine what that was like. Her parent's death had irrevocably changed her life line, true, but everyone knew about that. She worried always that pity for her loss hovered behind people's eyes, especially here in Smallville, where no one ever really died. When she was younger she had found that the only way to stop the inevitable "How are you, dear?" that always followed "My Lana, how you've grown" was to be the first one to bring up the subject.

Lex, too, had the intensity that she found so compelling. He was a prince in his castle coming to mingle among the populace; a knight whose armor, she'd always known, was tarnished--but any knight was hard to come by for the modern princess. And he could be so surprisingly kind, in ways that never occurred to her he was until long afterwards. Lex was a mystery, like Clark. She knew that the friendship between the two of them was a puzzle to most Smallvillians. What, beyond gratitude, did the billionaire see in the young farmboy? And some more prurient minds (who doubtless had heard some of the racier rumours about Lex's adolescence) gave knowing looks behind Lex's back when he and Clark left the Talon. But Lana knew exactly what held that friendship together. She knew how compelling it was to look at another person and see a mirror of yourself, even if the mirror is cloudy. She knew that Lex saw in Clark the same things she did, and probably had from the first moment he opened his eyes on the bank after Clark dragged him from the river. Lex was--astute like that. Clark flirted with the danger of having all his secrets exposed with every moment he spent around Lex. And she knew how compelling that could be as well.

And maybe that's why she liked Pete so much. Pete wasn't complicated. Pete wasn't driven. Pete didn't have a destiny-capital-D. Pete was normal. Pete was like her. Pete didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. Pete was just looking to get through high school. Pete liked pretty girls and wasn't ashamed to say so and wasn't afraid to go for it. Pete also wasn't arrogant or over-confident. Pete wasn't good at anything, or even spectacular at one thing. Pete was just a good friend and a good person. So she broke up with Whitney and waited for Clark to finally make his move. And she became friends with Chloe and she never spoke ill of Lex. And she knew that if Pete ever asked her out she would say yes.

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End file.
